Gleanings of the Week Ending February 16, 2013

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles I read this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Bird-of-Paradise Project - from The Cornell Lab of Ornithology - lots of videos of the birds and how the images were captured too

Image of the Day: ‘Goose Bump’ Muscles - mouse hair follicles

Hans Rosling shatters the myth of “developed” versus “developing” nations - TED talk

Videos From Northeast Blizzard - National Geographic’s pick of 6 videos

Amazing Animal Hearts - heart trivia from the National Wildlife Federations. Did you know that a blue whale’s hear beats only 7 times per minute?

Geocaching - technology supported treasure hunting

Thousands of Merged Photos Display Sun's Surface

Desalination Seen Booming at 15% a Year as World Water Dries Up

A US high speed rail network shouldn't just be a dream - Wouldn’t it be nice to have the option to go high speed rail rather than airplane?

Table of Trends and Technologies for the World in 2020 - A thought provoking list of ideas from Richard Watson. His blog posts about the table is here and here (the second one provides a list of references).

Self-Assembling, Origami-Inspired Particles - lots of nanotechnology potential….how long until truly useful reality?